4 ms·
Why would a person ... bring a child into the world Do you believe that people are descended from ancestors in the Garden of Eden? If not, the most rational e
by PhantomGremlin 7y ago
Why would a person ... bring a child into the world
Do you believe that people are descended from ancestors in the Garden of Eden?
If not, the most rational explanation is that we are descended from ancient organisms on primordial Earth. Perhaps not even Earth (i.e. panspermia).
How many billions of generations of asexual reproduction as single celled organisms? How many millions of generations of multi celled animals? How many thousands of generations of Homo Sapiens?
Each and every one of your ancestors reproduced. They survived long enough to reproduce. Probability 1. Not probability 0.9999999999. Probability 1.
That is such an astonishing thing that it is literally inconceivable (not capable of being imagined or grasped mentally; unbelievable) by me, at least not fully.
And yet, here we are. All of us. We've all won the lottery of life. We, each and every one of us, are here because each and every one of our ancestors brought a child into the world.
That's why he had a child. Because each and every one of his ancestors had a child. And many of those children survived in a far far more difficult environment than what we find ourselves in today.
That biological imperative outweighs everything else. This isn't usually conscious. This doesn't have to be rational. It's hardwired deeply into our DNA. Because we wouldn't be here unless it was.
- 77pt77 7y ago> and every one of your ancestors reproduced. They survived long enough to reproduce. Probability 1. Not probability 0.9999999999. Probability 1. This is not how it works.
- PhantomGremlin 7y agoThis is exactly how it works. There is at least 1 unbroken chain of descent from the first life to you. To each of us. It's only recently that new life can be created by other means. E.g. nowadays it is possible to remove the nuclear DNA from an egg and transfer it to another egg.
- concordDance 7y agoWell if you want to get technical there is a 1 in a trillion xN chance that something really weird happened and your ancestor got some DNA from a dead thing.
- PhantomGremlin 7y agoIt's, perhaps, soon going to get much weirder than that. How much gene editing (e.g. CRISPR[1]) before the resulting life is "artificial"? A few edits to fix a genetic flaw such as cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia? What happens when it's possible to edit out 100 such genetic flaws? And do we go beyond obvious flaws? What if we figure out how to give everyone the visual acuity of Chuck Yeager? How many more "improvements" before the result is something akin to Frankenstein's monster? Biotechnology will probably be the biggest growth area of the 21st century. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR_gene_editing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR_gene_editing